25 years ago From the pages of THE LIFEBOAT, June 1965 issue SIX NEW STEEL LIFEBOATS After intensive trials extending over nearly a year the Institution has decided, in principle, to build six 44- foot steel life-boats. They will be to the same basic design as that of the 44-foot life-boats now in the service of the United States Coast Guard. The necessary specification and comprehensive drawings are being prepared, and when they are completed tenders will be invited from firms in Britain and Ireland capable of building such craft The interest of the R.N.L.I. in this new type of life-boat was first aroused at the ninth international life-boat conference in Edinburgh in June 1963, when papers , read and films shown by the United States Coast Guard delegation indicated that this type of life-boat had much to recommend it. A small delegation headed by the Chairman, Captain the Hon. V.M. Wyndham- Quin, R.N., visited the United States, and through the good offices of the U.S. Coast Guard a 44-foot steel lifeboat reached Britain in May 1964. Since then trials extending over 5,000 sea miles have been conducted • around the coasts of Britain and Ireland, and the lifeboat also carried out trials off the coast of the Netherlands.

(The six steel lifeboats were the first of what became the 44ft Waveney class, the first of the new generation fast lifeboats, and all of which are still in service with the RNLI.) ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING During 1964 rescue craft of the Royal National Life- Boat Institution received more service calls than in any year since the foundation of the Institution in 1824.

This was reported by Captain the Hon. V.M. Wyndham- Quin, Chairman of the Committee of Management, at the Annual General Meeting of the governors of the Institution at Central Hall, Westminster, on 6 April 1965. The meeting was attended by H.R.H. Prin- cess Marina, Duchess of Kent, President of the Institu- tion.

Captain Wyndham-Quin said: There were a number of reasons for this remarkable occurrence. One was the increasingly successful use of the fast inshore rescue boats, which are now becoming a familiar sight around our coasts. We first introduced these small boats, • which are intended primarily for rescue work in the summer months, two years ago as an experiment. So ' successful has the experiment been that this year we shall have nearly twice as many of these boats in service as we did last year.

"It might, perhaps, be thought that the use of these boats will lessen the calls on the traditional boats. Yet the facts of last year do not seem to bear this out..." ; (In 1964 there were 1,167 lifeboat launches, twenty •; five years later that figure has increased four-fold to 4,523 - yet another record-breaking year).